Anything But Blue

People

2009-02-23T20:22:00.001-05:00

I don't like people.

Well, no. That's not entirely true. Individuals are fine. I like and even love a fair amount of individuals.

But groups? Not my thing.

I am student directing our school's musical, Miss Saigon. We open this Friday. We have an extraordinary team of people working on it, including a highly talented cast full of people I generally respect and like, having been an actor for most of the shows here.

But there's this interesting phenomenon that when the pressure is on, they all just sort of check out. It seems trivial, but we maintain total silence in the hall, because sounds are easily heard. Simple, yes?

So then why the fuck did i end up having to chastise harshly and eventually yell at the same fucking groups of people four or five times?

Fine. Okay. They're actors, what do they know? There's just forgetful I still love them.

What really pisses me off is disrespect.

I personally do my bet never to act in a disrespectful way to anybody, regardless of my (often strong) opinions. I keep that crap to myself and afford each and every human being the respect they deserve just by virtue of being alive.

Thus, I am unable to fathom when people don't.

We have some members of the crew/directorial staff that are underclassmen.

They know what they're doing. They're damn good. They know how to run a show.

And yet it really disgusted me how some of the upperclassmen, whom I would have thought to be much more mature, treated them when asked to do something.

It was horrifying, to tell the truth.

Meh.

The human condition is something I'll never truly understand.

The Official Compendium of Everything

2009-02-22T14:36:00.001-05:00

http://theofficialcompendiumofeverything.blogspot.com/

Little side-project of mine.

Surveillance

2009-02-22T12:51:00.001-05:00

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/17/met_cctv/

I am still torn on this issue. On one level, it's kind of creepy to be constantly watched. But at the same time, you are out in public, and one should not expect privacy when in public. These cctv systems are not used for malicious purposes, they just aid in protection of the public by making identification that much quicker. The police could still get the same (albeit less reliable) data through interrogation, and standing officers. CCTV is a tool tht makes that less necessary.

But...for some reason we have an inborn paranoia about being recorded.

Meh.

The Official Compendium of Everything

2009-02-22T12:21:00.001-05:00

http://theofficialcompendiumofeverthing.blogspot.com/

Little side-project of mine.

Diversity

2009-02-22T10:28:00.001-05:00

Lots of posts in one day, but hey, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm bored.

Basically, I'm worried that this is just going to turn into one of those self-indulgent whiney blogs, like that last post of mine.

S I want to also blog about interesting things. Stuff that happens, stuff I enjoy.

If anyone reads this, I'd love suggestions in this respect, or send me links (djbjrca@gmail.com) and I'd be more than happy to post them.

Happy trails!

Thus It Begins

2009-02-22T10:18:00.001-05:00

This is an interesting time in my life, which is part of the reason I think it's a good time to start blogging. There is a lot up in the air, a lot of potential for drastic change. I'm 17 years old. I'm a junior in high school. At this point I can either keep myself on track academically or totally tank without a ton of effort. Most people don't really worry about that too much, you know what kind of student you are in general. I have no idea.

I have in a sense become erratic and unpredictable. I was a straight-a student for many years, and last semester I failed a class.

I used to be very introverted and shy but generally content. Now I would be described as very outgoing and friendly and I recently tried to kill myself

I have no idea what the hell is going on.

And now starts second semester of junior year. Technically the most important semester, seeing as you take all those standardized tests, start looking at colleges, stabilize your GPA (more or less). Theres a fair amount of pressure if you're college-bound, and at my school there's something wrong if you aren't.

I guess I don't have a problem with that. But how on earth am I supposed to what what I will want to do in a year and a half if I don't know what I am liable to do tomorrow?

I do too much, but have no motivation to do anything. I never seek out things to fill time, I'd rather do nothing. Yet I am student directing the school's musical which opens in a week, I am the training director for our radio station, I recently emceed the Battle of the Bands, and I've actually found time in between for homework.

Weird.

Basically, I have absolutely no idea where to go from here, or even if knowing where to go makes a difference in where I inevitably end up.

I have a feeling 2009 is going to be an eventful year.

Third Reincarnation

2009-02-22T09:51:00.001-05:00

Alright. I once again, a year later, have stumbled upon this blog. I'm not sure why I set it up in the first place and after perusing my various posts I have concluded that whoever I was then has nothing or at least very little to do with who I am now.

So why not give this another shot?

I'm not going to make any deep profound observations. I'm not going to make powerful social comments. So I'm not even going to try.

The best I can do is try to report on things which I believe need reporting, and if I make someone's day, awesome. If I figure myself out, even better.

We shall see.

If you (reader) are reading this post, I assume you are new to this blog (because I had no readers before). Feel free to read previous posts if ou must, but I wouldnt reccomend it. You won't find anything interesting there. For all intents and purposes, this post is the first post. The blog starts here.

Ta!

Whoa

2008-02-22T18:02:00.002-05:00

Holy shit, I've got a blog.

Thats always weird, when you're kind of bored and surfing around through various too-frequented sites and there's nothing to do/read and you're too lazy to get off the computer and suddenly you stumble across your very own blog that you didn't really even know existed.

I don't have much to say, actually. It's been a pretty shitty couple of months, so nothing I really feel like recounting. COnsider yourselves lucky, all of you avid readers out there ><

Seasons

2007-11-20T21:22:00.000-05:00

It finally snowed today. It's been threatening to for a while, but never did. Until C block. History. I had a test. I could hardly concentrate, I was so excited.

I love snow.

Luckily, the test was easy, and then we got to go to the next block. My friend and I took the long way around, outside, and there was snow. And it was good.

Not enough for a snowball fight, we decided. Somehow I did get hit in the face though...

It had stopped by F block, but that was okay. The air was foggy, and when I finally got out of afterschool rehearsal, the temperature was like upper thirties and it was pitch black and utterly beautiful. Pretty much my perfect weather, right there. I could easily do that every single day.

No wind, of course.

So basically, today was awesome. I decided it merited a blog post. Ho hum.

Revision

2007-11-08T18:53:00.000-05:00

Well, seeing how quickly THAT died, I'm switching from the whole post-a-day thing to more of a post-when-I-damn-well-feel-like-it thing. Mostly when something interesting happens.

Which it hasn't.

So bye, you quivering, thundering fools.

Blurgh

2007-11-05T20:29:00.001-05:00

Today was Monday, and everything that goes with it.

Need I say more?

Percussion?

2007-11-04T17:33:00.000-05:00

Well now, this is interesting. For the past couple of weeks, I've been playing baritone horn and string bass in a traditional Klezmer (traditional Askenazi style) band in Boston, and we've been hacking away at a bunch of good old traditional klezmer tunes and it's been pretty fun. If you've never heard real Klezmer music, i highly suggest you seek it out, like on youtube somewhere, it's hard not to like, with the squealing clarinet, and triple jointed oboes and the likes. Good stuff.

Anyway, I was plucking along on a bass (one of the few pieces that I play it in) when the lead clarinet guy person thing at the front stopped us and stared at me for a while. I kinda freaked out because he's a really scary guy, stick-thin and wears a patch over his left eye because there's only half of it left and we don't know why (i'm not even kidding, it's really freaky). He just stared for a while, narrowing his eye, and then pointed at the poyk (like a bass drum with a small little metal thing thats sort of a cymbal but not quite on the top) in the corner and kinda nodded his head. So I walk over and pic up a mallet, and he nods.

What the fuck?

I'm sweating like crazy and the main percussionist is just like staring at me (she's really good) and she shakes her head and goes back to her snare drum/wood block. I'm pretty much screwed. Scary guy at the front cues us again, and I just sit there at first, listening. The real percussionist is doing some totally crazy thing that I can't possibly follow. After a quick little solo, i realized scary guy was staring at me and the percussionist gave me a nudge, so without thinking i just started banging the hell out of the poyk, trying as hard as I could to stay on some sort of beat. When I felt I had a groove steady enough, I started hitting the metal thing every once in a while too.

To me, it sounded like a bunch of noise. This was confirmed by the look of sheer disgust on the percussionists face. Creepy guy was still staring at me. It was weird though.

Because after the 8-5-1 at the end, we modulated and segwayed into an upbeat freylekh, I adjusted, kept banging, and he smiled. We played three sections, and each time, I got more and more into it. He stopped. I looked up. He nodded at me and smiled again, and we started again.

And so now I'm a Klezmer percussionist. And I kind of love it. I kind of REALLY love it. After I got the feel for the rhythm of the pieces, it's so easy to just get totally lost, and play. I started experimenting, and at the end of the session the real actually percussionist actually complemented me, and agreed to help me, give me tips and such.

It rocks.

That's all. Have a good week!

Efficiency

2007-11-03T12:04:00.000-04:00

Okay, I went to get a flu shot today. Fun stuff, that. Little prick in the arm, and you don't get the flu for a year. Gotta love it.

Anyway, when I got there I was surprised (as I'm sure I am every year) at the sheer volume of people. The line was all the way out the door on the ground level, snaking up and down the stairs up to the third where the clinic was. Obviously, my first thought was "oh, shit, this is going to take years." So I got my forms and started to fill it out and all that jazz. I looked up after the first two boxes and saw I was no longer in line at all. It had moved magnormiously,. which is, in fact, a word I made up. How this happened? I have no idea. As it turns out, the level of efficiency in that place was astounding. I had to struggle to finish the form before I got all the way through that hell of a line in about five minutes. Once there some bored looking woman just pointed to a desk, I gave the other bored looking man at a computer the form, and they pointed me to another bored looking woman who was holding a needle. Up goes the sleeve, swab, poke, swab, bye! All over in about 27 seconds.

I walked out totally amazed and with a slightly sore bicep and wondered why all operations couldn't run that smoothly. Of course, a shot is a very quick thing as it is, but the sheer volume of people being processed, with every single one of them documented, is huge. Even for longer processes, I think we have something to learn from these bored people with computers and needles.

And by the way, the two women were quite elderly and therefore uninteresting, but that guy at the computer was pretty damn sexy. He looked to be about in his mid-twenties, he had a huge-but-bored smile, was black, had blue eyes, and had the best jacket I've ever seen. I think I'm still madly in love with him. I REALLY like cute red jackets, recognizable to those of you who heard about that Spanish guy I wrote about on dA.

Okay that's enough for now. Bye!

Post

2007-11-02T21:57:00.000-04:00

Creative title, jah? You know you love it.

Well, I don't actually have all that much to say, it's really late and I'm tired, but I didn't have any reason not to write anything at all, so here we are.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

I plan to...

New Decision

2007-11-01T20:10:00.001-04:00

I have randomly decided that November is my favorite month.

Isn't that a nice idea? I guess it's sort of like affirmations or something, I have absolutely no reason to make this statement, but I think it'd be fun to have a really kickass month, so Ima say it's my favorite and just sorta go with what happens. Because, I mean, how could your favorite month ever be bad?

So this month will totally rock. Look out people, I'm having basically the time of my life, just because I told myself I would.

And that type of thing totally works, too. Kinda weird, how much control we really have over our experiences in life. It seems to me like each interaction is a total wild card, completely dependent on the other person's responses to you. But this is not the case. People are very predictable. This is why we have screenwriters who can write realistic dialogue. Conversation is easy. Maybe it's just me, but I somehow doubt it. I can run through long complicated conversations in my head by just thinking of two simple characters with simple motives, without even having to exert myself. And I get weird looks from passers-by who just see me pacing around muttering to myself about whatever random shit I'm talking about.

K long day tomorrow, gonna go sleep, bye!

Today

2007-10-31T16:30:00.000-04:00

Okay, I skipped yesterday again. This time it was an accident. Whatever.

Anyway, it's Wednesday, October 31, 2007. Halloween. Whee! Gotta love it.

And I'm finding that I actually do. Some of my classes today were really just pointless. Spanish, we have a test tomorrow, so we "reviewed" by drawing pictures. 'Twas sick. And then English was a study period more or less, History was awesome as usual, chem was another study, and in math my teacher went totally crazy. Gotta love it.

And now it's the romp around in costume getting free candy time. Of course, being the stupid little Jew that I am (it's really fun to say that), I am taking a conversational hebrew course that happens to be on Wednesdays, and we Jews are "above" all this shit or something, so I've got that, and won't get to romp, or even watch the rompers, but whatever. Life is good.

I scribbled on my face today. With a blue highlighter. It smelled like vinegar. One of my friends liked the smell a lot. We think she may have been high, though.

I have a bruise on my arm from a frisbee.

I cannot stand the smell of rotting pumpkins.

Knives can be sharp. I speak from experience.

Paper cutters are kinda cool.

As are fish. And sharks. Especially if they eat water demons.

I'm done. Happy halloween!!

Success

2007-10-29T21:04:00.001-04:00

What defines success? Is it prosperity or happiness? The two are nice ideas, but very rarely go together. The public education system seems to think it's prosperity. Everything we do is setting us up to make shitloads of money, if we do what they say. How nice. How wonderful. How wonderfully miserable.

I don't necessarily want shitloads of money. That would kind of suck. I'd much rather love what I do and be happy.

But that doesn't work either. Because unconditional enjoyment is not at all lucrative. So some sacrafice must be made. This means both sides should be taken in moderation.

But that's no good either. Who wants to lead a mediocre life making a mediocre amount of money? You get the worst of both worlds.

So where's the right balance? The whole "starving artist" extreme isn't any good. The wealthy CEO isn't either.

Where the hell do I want to be?

Nothing to Say

2007-10-28T20:09:00.000-04:00

See? This is exactly why I had resisted getting a blog for so long. I have absolutely nothing to say.

Life is good. I'm pretty happy. It's Sunday night. I have nothing of pressing importance sitting over my head.

I'm content. It rocks.

And yet does not exactly make for an interesting post. So sorry.

I'm done now.

Good night! :)

Science

2007-10-27T15:50:00.000-04:00

(song: "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" - Panic! At the Disco)

Fire was a damn good idea. Yay for fire.

And a bunch of other things that we sort of take for granted were simply brilliant. Still are.

Why is it, then, that we just sort of leave the science to the scientists? Our lives are built around a never-ending set of discoveries and breakthroughs that are cumulatively incorporated into products and ideas that we live by. This is endlessly important. And yet not nearly enough people seem to respect it.
("Sir Duke" - Stevie Wonder now, I love this thing)
Anyway, I don't know where I was going with that, just a quick little observation.

What I really wanted to talk about was Halloween. As I'm almost positive you're aware, all two of you who read this, it's this Wednesday. And I am already bracing myself.

It's really strange. Quite pagan, quite built up, glorifies everything that is generally considered taboo, and is "for the kids." What the fuck? How twisted is this...

I suppose it's really a way to get the kids out of the house for an evening. Let them dress up and eat candy, and they're as good as gone.

And what's with the whole death thing? The obsession with the occult? The sheer commercialism of all this? I just cannot bring myself to understand.

It DOES have religious roots, right? Where they went, I have no idea. There's nothing vaguely religious about it now. Although it would be fun to go to a Halloween service...

God this was random. I stop now.

(oh btw the song now is "Burnin' For You" - Blue Oyster Cult. Glad to have you back, mp3 player!)

Music

2007-10-26T19:45:00.001-04:00

Okay well today wasn't nearly as boring as yesterday, but still nothing groundbreaking. I don't know what I'm expecting, but it's that time of year again...

Anyway, I am just now realizing my reliance on music in my life. For the past week, my mp3 player has not worked. Like, at all. I normally listen to it when doing homework or other work or doing nothing at all, which is basically all the time. When it stopped working, I didn't really miss it that much, though. I just sort of did life without it. Today I sat down with it and after doing some things that one should probably never do if the word "warranty" is at all remotely important to them, it works again. And I have my music. And wow, I love it!

I'm listening right now to whatever song I choose (in case you care it's "Memphis Exorcism" by the Squirrel Nut Zippers, an excellent jazz recording.) And it's good. It directly affects my mood, and my productivity and practically everything.

I'm not totally sure how I survived the (long) week. How stupidly dependent of me. But strangely I don't have a problem with it.

It's my music. I like it. Is that so terrible?

(Now it's "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" by The Smiths)

Quickie

2007-10-25T20:23:00.000-04:00

Nothing happened today.

I'm totally serious. It was one of the most boring, uneventful days I've ever experienced. It wasn't a bad day, I got to be with all my friends and none of my classes were living hell so it was good.

Just so...typical. Average. Uninteresting.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow something will happen....

Wednesday

2007-10-24T20:19:00.000-04:00

Well, I made the conscious decision to not write anything yesterday, I was too out of it. So I wasn't just slipping, I actually had started a post but then stopped. But I don't think anybody actually reads this anyway so it doesn't matter.

Whatever.

Anyway, interesting fact, today is the anniversary of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's death. If you don't know who that is or why his death was significant, I strongly urge you to look it up. I'm not going to elaborate here because that's not what I do.

In other nes, I met a very interesting person today. This person, who is 17 years of age, middle class, living in the US and has all her life, has taken it upon herself to learn every major global language (including the constructed language Esperanto), without any practical reason beyond attaining a greater understand of the cultures from which they originate. And thus far, she has successfully become fluent in (besides English) Spanish, French, German, Russian, and Esperanto, and is showing no sign of slowing.

This utterly astounds me. Not only is just the fact that she is fluent in six different languages, but the fact that she is for the most part self-taught and with no actual practical goal in mind, no pressing reason to. She is obviously some sort of linguistic genius, but her drive to learn all these languages is really awe-inspiring. Even if such a desire for understanding does not manifest itself so extremely, we should all be prepared and willing to make personal sacrifices and go way beyond our comfort zone solely in order to be able to better relate to our surroundings. Our world defines us, just as we define our world. If we always expect the environment in which we find ourselves to conform to our preferences, we will be greatly disappointed. And while this is an extreme case, it truly brings to light the fact that as detached as she is from these other cultures and languages, her ability to understand them and communicate in them has deepened her understanding of her world, and knows better how to work it and work with it to satisfy her and everyone else's needs.

Wow. That's pretty damn cool. I have a very deep amount of respect for this person.

Finally, this site made me very happy. Check it out.

Peace out, y0!

Numbers

2007-10-22T19:18:00.001-04:00

That's all life is. A set of numbers. They define us, they guide us, they are us. You know what I mean. All these certificates of existence and whatnot.

I'm fucking standing in front of you! Do you not see? I need this sheet of paper?

Whatever. Doesn't matter to me. Just is a bit silly.

But even beyond the whole existence thing is the quantitative stuff. A good amount of school is preparation for tests, right? These tests are scored, which translates into a letter or a GPA value. They all get averaged up, and this little number is a measure of how smart we are. We get a bunch of these little numbers, and for the rest of our lives we have these numbers. Our intelligence stays constant. Colleges look at them. Certain employers look at them. And can safely judge you by them.

How cold. How can they get away with that?

Because everyone else does, that's why. We live in a very quantitative world. Just the fact that we have sayings like "don't judge a book by it's cover" reveals their necessity. In an idea world, we wouldn't need them. Because of course a person isn't a set of numbers.

Why don't we get that?

Because there's too damn many of us! How else would we keep everyone straight?

Well, my argument is that we don't, but I can see how bad an idea that is. So I guess we have to just sort of deal with it. With luck, our numbers will be in our favor.

Sounds kinda pagan, doesn't it?

And no, I don't like have a major test or anything coming up, I'm not bitching about that. Just an observation.

Books

2007-10-21T22:16:00.000-04:00

Well this is going to be incoherent because its like ten at night and I realized I hadn't written an entry today and that'd be bad, seeing as I've only been going three days. Don't want to break the "streak" so early.

Anyway, I was thinking today how amazingly awesome libraries are. If you think about it, we don't really need to own very many books. Only some reference, possibly, and perhaps some really good classics that you know you want to read over and over again.

Personally, though, I never buy a book I've never read. How do I know I'll ever even touch it again after the first read? In all likelihood, I won't. What a waste of money, when you can just get it from the library and get exactly the same amount of satisfaction without spending a single cent and creating unnecessary clutter in your living space?

This is probably painfully obvious to most people but whatever.

I suppose the Socialists win again here. And jah, it's a Socialist system. What's wrong with that? Nothing at all. Socialism has it's strong points. Look at the kibbutzim and moshavim in Israel, for instance. Very socialist, still thriving after like 75 years. Deganyah, the first kibbutz, is still very large and very well known. Sure, some have become all touristy and all, but a lot haven't. And they work. Go figure.

Wow, that was quite the tangent there. Sorry.

Anyway, libraries rock. Go libraries. Go down to yours toady. Find a book. "But Ben, I don't hae a library card!" Firstly, what is wrong with you? Second, it's really really easy to get one, idiot. Just go ask for one. You just need to like give them your name and some other stuff and they give you one. Easy.

Whee. Go libraries.

Bed now. Bye.

Tests

2007-10-20T16:39:00.000-04:00

Well I took the PSAT today. Go me.

Really kind of a pointless ritual. I paid about thirty dollars and three hours on a Saturday morning. And because I'm a sophomore it means nothing. My score isn't reported. There's no "national merit" shit to worry about. It was way too easy to be considered a "practice" for anything important.

So why did I do it?

I was thinking about this while taking it and a bit after, but then gave up, and have no good reason. At all, whatosoever. And you know what? I'm totally okay with that. At least now I know...something. And there was free pizza at the end. And my friends were there, and it was good.

In other news, afterwards I went over to a friends house and we watched (in it's entirety) the new David Lynch movie, Inland Empire.

It may be his best yet. I dunno. I loved it. Perfectly confusing, just scary enough to be fun, yet mindblowing enough to be confusing. Or something. David Lynch is an artistic genius, and Laura Dern is a truly amazing actress. Ima be scratching my head for a while, that's for sure. Go see it, ye who doth read this post. You may hate it. But then at least you will have seen it. And that's all that matters.

Other other news!

Getting into the whole "blogring" thing Ima post this link from boingboing.net I found. It's a great blog, if you don't read it, you should, but this in particular made me totally crack up. I smiled. Like, a lot.
Lookee here. I love the Japanese!

Okay done ranting for the day.